"What thoughts must through the creature's brain have passed! Even from the topmost stone, upon the steep, Are but three bounds; and look, sir, at this last- "For thirteen hours he ran a desperate race; What cause the hart might have to love this place, "Here on the grass perhaps asleep he sank, "In April here beneath the scented thorn He heard the birds their morning carols sing; And he, perhaps, for aught we know, was born Not half a furlong from that self-same spring. "Now, here is neither grass nor pleasant shade; The sun on drearier hollow never shone ; So will it be, as I have often said, 66 Till trees and stones and fountain, all are gone." Gray-headed shepherd, thou hast spoken well; Small difference lies between thy creed and mine: This beast not unobserved by Nature fell; His death was mourned by sympathy divine. "The Being that is in the clouds and air, For the unoffending creatures whom he loves. "The pleasure-house is dust-behind, before, "She leaves these objects to a slow decay, That what we are, and have been, may be known; But, at the coming of the milder day, These monuments shall all be overgrown. "One lesson, shepherd, let us two divide, Taught both by what she shows and what concealsNever to blend our pleasure or our pride With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels.” 1800. III. POWER OF MUSIC. AN Orpheus! an Orpheus! yes, faith may grow bold, Near the stately Pantheon you'll meet with the same His station is there; and he works on the crowd, What an eager assembly! what an empire is this! As the moon brightens round her the clouds of the night, That errand-bound prentice was passing in hasteWhat matter? he's caught--and his time runs to waste. The newsman is stopped, though he stops on the fret ; And the half-breathless lamplighter-he's in the net! The porter sits down on the weight which he bore; He stands, backed by the wall; he abates not his din; From the old and the young, from the poorest; and there! O blest are the hearers, and proud be the hand Of the pleasure it spreads through so thankful a band; I am glad for him, blind as he is!-all the while If they speak 'tis to praise, and they praise with a smile. That tall man, a giant in bulk and in height, Mark that cripple who leans on his crutch; like a tower Now, coaches and chariots! roar on like a stream ; 1806. IV. RESOLUTION AND INDEPENDENCE. THERE was a roaring in the wind all night; The birds are singing in the distant woods; All things that love the sun are out of doors; The grass is bright with rain-drops;—on the moors And with her feet she from the plashy earth Raises a mist, that, glittering in the sun, Runs with her all the way, wherever she doth run. I was a traveller then upon the moor, I saw the hare that raced about with joy; But, as it sometimes chanceth, from the might In our dejection do we sink as low; To me that morning did it happen so ; I heard the skylark warbling in the sky; Even as these blissful creatures do I fare; My whole life I have lived in pleasant thought, I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous boy, Of him who walked in glory and in joy Following his plough, along the mountain side: We poets in our youth begin in gladness; But thereof come in the end despondency and madness. Now, whether it were by peculiar grace, A leading from above, a something given, Yet it befell, that, in this lonely place, When I, with these untoward thoughts had striven, Beside a pool bare to the eye of heaven, I saw a man before me unawares: The oldest man he seemed that ever wore gray hairs. As a huge stone is sometimes seen to lie Couched on the bald top of an eminence; Wonder to all who do the same espy, By what means it could thither come, and whence, So that it seems a thing endued with sense : Like a sea-beast crawled forth, that on a shelf Of rock or sand reposeth, there to sun itself; Such seemed this man, not all alive nor dead, As if some dire constraint of pain, or rage A more than human weight upon his frame had cast. Himself he propped, body, and pale face, At length, himself unsettling, he the pond A gentle answer did the old man make, In courteous speech, which forth he slowly drew: And him with further words I thus bespake, "What occupation do you there pursue? This is a lonesome place for one like you." Ere he replied, a flash of mild surprise Broke from the sable orbs of his yet-vivid eyes. His words came feebly, from a feeble chest, Choice word and measured phrase, above the reach Such as grave livers do in Scotland use, Religious men, who give to God and man their dues. He told, that to these waters he had come And he had many hardships to endure: From pond to pond he roamed, from moor to moor; Housing, with God's good help, by choice or chance, And in this way he gained an honest maintenance. |